PFBA
Overview
Perfluorobutanoic acid, one of the shortest-chain PFAS. It has no federal drinking-water limit. It is measured because EPA's national monitoring programme is looking for where PFAS occur, not because a standard exists to compare it against.
In Florida, PFBA was found in 74 community water systems serving about 8,292,432 people. Nobody has set a legal limit for it, so no reading here counts as an exceedance and no utility is required to do anything about it.
Where it comes from: Breakdown product of longer-chain PFAS; stain repellents; paper and packaging coatings.
The standards
Enforceable. A utility must stay at or under this.
Health-based, not enforceable. Often lower than the limit, sometimes zero.
No government body has assessed this compound at all. Florida Water Report sets one part per trillion, the level peer-reviewed research on perfluorinated compounds supports as a combined-exposure benchmark, because a measurement with nothing to read it against tells a person nothing.
Health effects the EPA associates with it: No federal drinking-water limit has been set. EPA links PFAS exposure generally to decreased immune response, increased cholesterol, and developmental effects.
The health goal is set on health alone. The legal limit is set as close to it as is technically and economically feasible, so treatment cost and available technology are written into the number a utility is measured against. A system at or under the limit is meeting the standard it is required to meet. Both numbers are shown so the distance between them is visible.
What removes it
One of the hardest PFAS to remove. Its very short chain passes through activated carbon quickly, so reverse osmosis or anion exchange is the more reliable choice. There is no federal limit to treat toward, which is its own reason to reduce it rather than wait for one.
Treatment guidance describes the methods generally used for this contaminant. What your own tap actually carries depends on your plumbing and your service line as much as on the utility, which is what a test at the house tells you and an annual report cannot.
Where in Florida
Highest reported levels
Showing the 25 highest of 74 systems that reported PFBA.
Data Sources
These figures describe water as delivered by each utility, not what your home’s plumbing adds after it arrives. Informational; not a substitute for testing your own tap.